1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to inventory management systems, and more specifically relates to an inventory mechanism that adjusts inventory of components based on components available in assemblies in inventory.
2. Background Art
Inventory control systems have been developed as part of manufacturing processes. There are typically many different levels of hierarchy in an inventory control system. Individual parts may be assembled together to build a Build-to-Plan (BTP) item.
One example of a BTP item is a memory card, which may contain many parts such as a printed circuit board, integrated circuits, resistors, capacitors, etc. Once a BTP item is manufactured, it is put into inventory under the BTP part number. In similar fashion, Configure-to-Order (CTO) items may contain multiple BTP items. One example of a CTO item is a System i™ integrated business system manufactured by IBM Corporation. A CTO item typically includes many BTP items.
Some CTO items may have common characteristics that allow partially building a common assembly that may be used as a starting point for many different CTO items. For example, most System i platforms may include a common chassis, a common motherboard, a common processor, a common power supply, and a common memory card. To help expedite the manufacturing process, an assembly that includes these common BTP items could be defined so the assembly may be manufactured and tested in advance, then additional BTP items may be added as specified in a CTO order. Thus, the example assembly above with the five BTP items (chassis, motherboard, processor, power supply, memory card) could be used as a starting point for many different CTO orders, thereby streamlining the process of building CTO items. This assembly is given a part number, and future CTO items may then be built using the part number of the assembly as a starting point.
One problem that arises when assemblies are built and put into inventory is that inventory requirements may change. Thus, an inventory control system may decide today to build 50 assemblies based on current demand and inventory. A few days later, the inventory control system may receive an order for CTO items, but may now have insufficient stock of BTP items because many BTP items are now sitting in the assemblies. These assemblies typically have a high-level part number that effectively hides the contents of these assemblies from the inventory control system. In other words, once a BTP unit is placed in an assembly that has its own part number, the part number of the assembly becomes the item the inventory control system keeps track of. As a result, known inventory control systems do not provide an architected way to determine what inventory is available in an assembly should the assembly be disassembled. In other words, in the prior art, once a BTP is put in an assembly, the BTP is no longer available for use. Yet many of these BTPs could be easily removed from the assembly and could then be placed in a different assembly. Because there is no architected way to account for reusable components in an assembly in the prior art, there is no way for known inventory management systems to adjust physical inventory levels according to reusable components in assemblies. Without a way to more effectively manage assemblies and account for components in an assembly, the manufacturing industry will continue to suffer from less efficient ways of handling existing inventory in fulfilling new orders.